Make alphabet soup a cash cow

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GRI, CRS, CRB, CBR -- Realtors love to collect designations. The question is, do they make any difference to your business? Are you a designation junkie? Lots of Realtors have multiple designations. In fact, many vendors both inside and outside the real estate industry offer "I'm-certified-in-your-product-or-service" designations as a way to attract designation-hungry clients. For 18 years I worked at a company that allowed me to use only my name and "associate broker" on my business card. Never mind that I had a Ph.D. That wasn't allowed either. Because agents could use designations on their marketing materials, nobody bothered with them. Did this companywide ban on advertising our designations hurt our business? The answer is "no." We often had 50-...